A Great and Terrible Beauty

Gemma Doyle starts the book off living in 1895 India with her parents. A strange tragedy strikes, resulting in her leaving India and going to a girl's school in India, one of the schools that helps prepare young girls to become "proper" young women; that is, women who can end up finding themselves a husband by exhibiting the proper behaviors such as obedience, knowing the "traditional" household chores, etc.

When Gemma gets there she runs afoul of the most powerful clique in the school, but this changes over time as does her attitude towards herself, especially as she learns that she has certain very powerful abilities.

Those abilities allow her to venture into a world run by magic, a world of wonderful sights but also a world of incredible dangers, dangers which Gemma does not fully understand.

This is a slow-moving book, but not in a bad way. It's like an incredibly high-quality British drama; it moves slowly but powerfully. Even though it deals with a world of magic it doesn't overemphasize that; instead, it does an excellent job of blending the two worlds. It also does a really good job with the four main female characters who all become quite real characters, not shallow at all.

This is the first part of the story, and if the next part is as good as this one it's going to end up becoming an instant classic of young adult fiction.

Main Index

Yadult Index